The Family Budget

My New Year's Resolution, if I were to call it as such, was to get a better grip on our family's finances and bring us to a comfortable financial position. After 5-1/2 years of marriage (read: sharing my hard-earned money with someone else), I finally started an official budget for the family. I've been planning to do it for months, but I finally put my foot down, bit my lip and said "This is the month!"

My husband jumped on board. Oh, alright, he didn't jump but he wasn't kicking and screaming, which is a good sign. I must add, I am the shopper in the family, but my husband takes the cake when it comes to accumulating receipts for snacks, pop, junk food. While I haven't bought anything in months, he routinely charges ridiculous amounts on his credit card.

So it's now mid-February and we're not quite over the hump yet. We've got a Vegas trip we're saving up for, end of March, so a lot of our extra funds are going there. After this month, hopefully we'll have a better idea of how to really allocate our hard-earned money, when there are no credit card bills to pay.

The only things charged to the Visa are preauthorized bills. I did charge a small number of items, such as some gas purchases, but it really works out well if I pay that amount immediately back onto my Visa. When I look back at my online statement, these amounts cancel each other out and it's like have a debit card rolled into your Visa. For the first time, hubby has a zero balance on his Visa statement, mine has a credit rolling over for the 2nd month (Dividend dollars...looking online for something to spend), and our family Visa has just preauths of under $300.

Life is looking good again.